Theodore Caspian

I haven’t been able to post on this blog for a very long time because we lost our baby in February & it was too hard to write about him, and I couldn’t write about anything else.

We found out he was possibly ill early in my second trimester & then in January that he was in fact critically ill and not likely to survive. We had to go to Melbourne a number of times for tests & specialised ultrasounds, with further ultrasounds and obstetrician appointments every week, until the first week of February when he died. I was induced and gave birth to him on February 5^th. He was buried in the local cemetery following a graveside service with a few close family and friends.

He had hydrops (fluid buildup) as a complication of Down’s Syndrome.

Here’s a picture of a bootie I started making him early on & finished in time for him to be buried with it (it was too big for him to wear). I finished a matching one to keep with the things we have to remember him. 

Baby stuff & The Winged Gift

Well, it’s been a while. Until a couple of weeks before Christmas, I got so sick (just nausea, dizziness, tiredness that also made me nauseated lol), that I could only leave the house in short bursts when Theo drove me :). Pretty pathetic. A lot of the time I just laid on the couch wanting to throw up. My mum came and did some housework for me twice a week (we did actually pay her ;)).

Good news: I can actually drive somewhere by myself now, and be gone for hours! I can do a lot of my own housework! (the rest just doesn’t get done ;)). I have added salad rolls, Subway and icecream to my diet! Yay for small blessings! Lol. And I actually got my Christmas shopping done before Christmas. Just ;) But I am wondering when I will ever be able to cook an actual meal again. (Scalloped potatoes don’t count). I did make vegie lasagne a few weeks ago (although Theo did help ;)). Can’t stand the thought of it now ;).

We got a galah a few weeks ago. He’s only a baby and we think he blew out of a tree in a paddock nearby in some strong winds, and no parents came to claim him. (I always wanted a galah, I was very happy. He was like a gift from the sky ;)). He couldn’t fly. A week later he flew enough that he escaped and we lost him (here I am, devastated again). Then the next day my stepdad found him wandering around in the carpark next door and returned him (happy again!). Poor thing was so hungry. He’s my current little baby ;). 

We had our next blood test & 12 week ultrasound & both of the tests by themselves suggested we should go have an amnio. We decided not to, it certainly wouldn’t make a difference to how we proceeded with anything. We’re just being positive & seeing what happens.

Finally had our first antenatal appointment at the hospital! We were meant to have it at the start of December, but when we turned up for that one, there was some mixup and we did everything they told us to do, including sit in the wrong spot, and the place was packed full of very old people, so we missed the appointment and had to reschedule for three weeks later. It was just really really dumb, especially as Theo took the day off work for it lol. So, had our first/second one, turns out the doctor’s office lost our original blood tests & the hospital didn’t have them & so I had to do that again ;). And more peeing in a cup.

I’ve been drinking half strength Gatorade in an effort to stop this dehydration thing I’ve got going on. For some reason I am finding it harder to drink water than I did when I felt even worse lol. I’ve been getting a lot of headaches and I think that’s just because I’m dehydrated. When I drink more, they go away anyway ;).

I really really really want Subway now. I don’t want to drive 20 minutes for it though. Dang. If Theo was home, he’d be very nicely asked if he wanted to go for a drive….

Ooh! And I’m not just feeling fat now, I actually have a bit of a baby bump :). Yay!!!

p.s. for any visitors from the baby site, sorry that this is basically a repeat of what i posted there ;) 

A little bit camping

We’ve been camping this week. We’ve been planning it for ages. We left on Sunday afternoon & came back not today or yesterday as planned, but on Tuesday night. Well, we thought that might happen ;)
All the things that I normally find fun, I didn’t. All the things that are normally just a bit inconvenient were sending my stress levels through the roof, and peeing twenty times a day in a portaloo is not much fun either. So, nothing was fun, everything was bad, I felt like crap when I didn’t just feel like sleeping, so we came home.
After I cried about it, I was relieved & Theo was very nice about it all & if he minded he didn’t say so.

Here's some nice camping photos I did end up taking :).

We also went out to a friend’s for tea last night and in between dinner and dessert the bachelor of the house made up a bed for me on the lounge room floor so I could have a lie down, instead of just doing that at the table. I felt like a 2 year old LOL. Funnily enough, yesterday was probably the best I’d felt all day in a while. Until teatime ;).

4 Tests Later....

On Tuesday I woke up feeling sad because I'd had this very vivid dream about this perfect baby I had had, and when I woke up it wasn’t true, and I had no baby. Mind you, Theo & I are trying NOT to have babies right now, and that was a very mutual decision ;)

This dream, however, left me feeling very weird to say the least. My period was actually late too but that was nothing unusual. I’d had cramps for the last week and a half, so I was expecting it any moment. At some point that morning I think I realised that my cramps were just hanging around not getting any worse, and that nothing was happening.

I think I went to the bathroom next, feeling silly, peed on a stick, and as I sat there watching the first line appear, I thought, right, that’s that silliness out of my head. I got up to leave. And then I saw this really faint second line appear. Started thinking I was hallucinating. Realised I wasn’t and ran straight to the bathroom cupboard to get another test from the box. Repeated the process.

They were both quite faint lines, so I think at this point I thought about my cramps and wondered what was really going on. I think here I ran to the computer and googled ‘cramps in early pregnancy’ and lo and behold, that appeared to be fairly normal. Why hadn’t I heard about this before?! (The sequence of events is all muddled up in my head and its possible I did all this before the first test. Makes less sense, but who knows! ;))

The morning was getting on by now, Theo was on earlies & due home at 1. I raced to the chemist and got a third test (eyeing off the door the whole time in case anyone I knew came in), and surprise surprise it was positive too. I made a doctors appointment for that afternoon (a miracle they could fit me in at all, really). I texted Theo twice because he was late getting home, and broke the news to him:

Me: “I had this weird vivid dream last night about a baby I had, and I was really sad when I woke up and it wasn’t true”  

Theo: “Are you pregnant?”

(I shove the test stick at him, which I had been hiding in the piano keyboard. He is most surprised. But very happy, I must add ;) ).

To cut a long story short, we go to the doctors, I pee in a cup, give them lots of blood. We drive half an hour to the nearest big chemist just to get the most expensive pregnancy test we can find, and I surreptitiously use it in Theo’s parents’ bathroom, where we surprise them with the news :). 

I’m only just now getting used to the idea :)